Historical:Beginner's Guide
What it is about? This is all about how to create everything that humans already created, and more. A normal person could not really imagine, how it is possible, but it is already proved possible by once doing it. Cars, computers, airplanes, trains, 3D cinemas, mobile phones, radio and many other marvels are all around you, even though not so very long time ago people were using nothing more than bone, stone, wooden and leather tools. First: Join the Mailing list! First, if you are excited about this goal and would like to contribute to some extent, add yourself into our mailing list, as we are mostly communicating through the public mailing list. You can do it through this page: http://groups.google.com/group/howto-l/ (If you don't have a Google Account, you can create it) . You can also contact us through IRC chat on: http://irc.wikicities.com/ (Nicknames are: Angela, Inyuki, Moa3333) Also you can search for specific contacts in the list of contributors. Introduction to organization As we will be actually writing on things, the organization will also be by things. So, every thing that exists, would have an original entry. Another thing is, our technological evolution continued over the cycle of creation - we created things, which allowed us to create the other things. So, to process the cycle back, we have to think of 1) the creation of the thing itself; 2) the things that can be created with it. So, every entry must have 2 parts: # A part on how to create (or get) it, # A part on what you can do (or get) with it. Approach: The project of "Can" Another thing is, most people don't know technologies well, so we have to divide the big tasks into small ones. Instead of directly asking the big "How", we have to start from writing on what you can create with the thing you supposedly have. Later these will be useful for writing articles on the "big how". The purpose Mission To become the site, providing public information on how to engineer things in natural environment from scratch. Goals * To make things usable. What belongs here Anything that might be ever used, belongs here. So how do you combine the big "How" with "Can" approach? Simple. Every page about a thing X''' must have a link to the page "'''How to create X". Below this link is everything about what you can with X. X How to create X With X you can: Writing on what you can with a thing If you write on something that you can do with some peace of technology, tool, animal, person, or any thing that exists, just find a page of that thing that is most important in doing it, and list your use under the sentence "With .. you can:", like this: With X you can: * Get A * Do B * Create C * Create D * Make E * Find F ... How to decide, under which thing is the most important in doing it If something is performed using a few things at once, and you doubt, which thing is the most important, try the following methods: #The thing that is essential, and can't be substituted by anything else #The thing that performs a change on another thing is more important. #The thing that is used as a tool rather than as a material, is more important. #The thing that is rarer or more expensive Think by yourself. If you still can't find the most important thing, list it not at a single page, but on few pages. But in most cases, don't be Does anything that you can do with X, go under "Can"? Almost. However, we are contentrating on creation, rather than plain doing, so our final goal is to write on creation of the same things that we are using. That is, you should concentrate more on getting and creating, rather than doing. However, as creation consists of small steps, including just doing, doing also is okay. Where to write about the exact thing Let's assume that you are interested in the part "Create C". There are few ways to deal with this part. You can simply leave it as it is, and add a link from the internet, where you found the solution like this: * Do B * Create C Solution: http://www.somesolution.com/somepage/ (comment) * Create D OR you can create a page about the solution yourself: * Do B * Create C Creating C with X * Create D Another few important points for editing # When we edit an article about creating something complex, and notice that some part of it is created using a different tool or mean that we can identify or we know that it exists, we write a link to the article with the name that includes the tool or mean, and not write it in the article we were writing before, but just give the link, and put that link also to the page of the tool or mean. That is, if you are writing a page about creating MediaWiki, I suppose there will be something about creating the database of MediaWiki. You don't write this in the page How to create MediaWiki, but write a link to the page Creating MediaWiki database with MySQL database, and add the same link to the page MySQL database. # At first it might be that a page about the application of Iron will be full of various products, however, later we'll notice that for creation of them, we actually use something that is created from Iron, and too have names, like Pyrophoric iron. Some articles products, like Oxygen absorber in the Iron page, should then be shifted to the Pyrophoric iron page, and the Pyrophoric iron should be added to the Iron page. That is, from the general materials to more specific. From the multipurpose to the more specific. Of course, Creating Oxygen absorber with Pyrophoric iron might have several methods, using different additional components. These are the different technologies of doing the thing. I think different technologies could have names in h2 type of syntax, like Creating xx with techonology yy , as all the technologies do have names I think. Writing on the big "How" Don't matter about this question unless the thing that you want to do, cannot be categorized under the "With X you can". If the thing that you want to do cannot be categorized under the "With X you can" because of simply too many operations and tools used to produce it, create it under the "How to create X", and start writing the article by following the "How to" link, like this one: How to create X Abstract vs Concrete The concrete objects that already exist in the world, have traceable path of technology, whereas conceptual things do not. This makes confusion for some people, so here is the clarification: Just like in encyclopedia, you can write on both - abstract and concrete things, but if you write about abstract things, list only the things that you can with any thing belonging to the scope of that concept. Continue ja:初心者ガイド